Harmonic Distortion
by irfikos
Summary: Harmony has a big surprise for everyone - especially Angel and Spike. (This was written before "Harm's Way" so there are a couple of tiny inconsistencies.) Thanks to msizzabella for the helpful beta!


**RATING:**_ G-PG  
_**FEEDBACK:**_ Will grovel for feedback!  
_**BETA: **_msizzabella (thank you, thank you, thank you!)  
_**SUMMARY/NOTES:**_ Harmony has a surprise for everyone. I wrote this before "Harm's Way" aired, so there are some minor inconsistencies.  
_

* * *

It was really hard to make her way back to the office building without spilling her Frappuccino, what with all the dark clouds and screaming humans running around. She had to stop and brace herself, thankful for vampire agility and balance with each tremor of the earth. By the time she made it to the building entrance, it had already started raining blood. Which was pretty neat, actually. It meant she didn't have to wait 'til she got back to her desk to add any to the Frappuccino. All she had to do was take the lid off the cup and hold it up for a second or two. She took a sip as she stepped inside. Yummy.   
  
Inside was even worse than it was outside. The bodies of her coworkers were strewn all over the lobby. She had to pull one guy out of the way in order to get the elevator door to close. Whatever was going on, it must be pretty big. Sipping at her Frappuccino, she hummed along with the muzak.   
  
The elevator dinged and she stepped out onto a battlefield. No way was she getting back to her desk before lunch break was over. Just great. It was really turning out to be a bad day.  
  
A body hurtled toward her from somewhere in the middle of the big fight. It was Wesley. She ducked in time to avoid getting knocked over by him as he flew past. Uh-oh. He didn't look so good.  
  
"Wesley?" She leaned over to peer at him, as he lay all sprawled out on the floor where he had landed.  
  
"H-harmony?" he panted, straining to gaze up at her. His head was bleeding. She took another sip of her Frappuccino. Hopefully he would be okay. After all, it was because of Wesley that she had gotten her big break into the exciting world of Administrative Assistance  
  
"Are you okay?" she asked him as another person came flying past. She didn't know that one very well so she didn't pay much attention.  
  
"Harmony..." Wesley responded, "run. You should... save yourself. Not that it matters. It's over. We can't stop it." He gave an insano kinda laugh. It was really depressing.   
  
Hearing a roar from Spikey – Spike – behind her, she turned to see him and Angel locked in battle with some big hell beast. It was standing in the center of the room, chanting some mystic gobbledygook, and even though the two vamps were fighting side-by-side (which was really sweet considering how much they'd been arguing lately) they didn't seem to be making any impact on the demon. With a swoop of its tail, it managed to send the both of them flying. The vampires went crashing completely through the wall at the other end of the room.  
  
Harmony decided it would be a good idea to take a half-day and turned to follow Wesley's advice. But the demon's big boomy chanting seemed to cause another ginormous earthquake. It knocked her off balance enough to pitch her Frappuccino all down the front of her blouse.  
  
Okay. That did it.   
  
"Hey! You big dummy!" she shouted, stomping her foot and tossing the now-empty Frappucccino cup at the demon. Sure, she knew how to get out blood stains, but how the heck do you get out Frappuccino stains? How totally rude.   
  
The demon turned on her then, clumping toward her.   
  
Oops.  
  
Without really thinking about it, she reached into her purse. Digging around frantically, she latched onto a nail file and brandished it before her. The demon, not all that impressed, kept coming. Behind him, she could see Angel and Spike climbing groggily back through the hole they'd made in the wall.  
  
"Harm!" Spike shouted.  
  
At the same time, Angel yelled, "Run!"  
  
She would have if she could, but there was nowhere to run to. And when the demon leaped at her, she vamped, shrieked, and lunged at the thing with her nail file. She jammed the file into the thing's eye, at the same time slapping at its head with a balled up fist. No way was she going to bite something as gross as that thing. Like, yuck.   
  
She didn't expect the demon to just fall over, dead. And she definitely didn't expect to just – blip! – disappear.  
  
So what's up with that?  
  


* * *

  
Then again, she also didn't expect to rematerialize again in the very same spot, all naked and very much alive. It was Angel who found her, as he and the other able-bodied survivors picked through the rubble looking for clues as to what exactly had happened. She blinked up at him. He just stood there, looking at her with that big "huh?" look he got sometimes.   
  
She sat up. She wasn't hurt or anything. Just kinda freaked out. She felt really weird. And chilly. Pretty soon, Lorne was there too. And Fred. And then Spike. All of them just stood there, gaping, with her staring back.  
  
Then Fred was all, like, "Um... uh..." Looking around for something to cover her with. It was Spike, actually, the last one in the world that she would have expected, who finally stepped forward and shook off his coat. He handed it to her at arm's length. Still managing to get in a solid look at her boobs.  
  
"Yeah, let's not rush to help all at once, right?" he grumbled, rolling his eyes at Angel as he stepped back.  
  
Harmony stood up and wrapped the coat around herself, feeling pretty embarrassed. But mostly feeling really, really confused. "Um... is it still lunch break?" she asked, looking around at the assembled crowd.  
  
Angel cleared his throat. "Harmony..." He was looking at her funny. "Uh... you're not... dead."  
  
"I guess not," she replied. They were all looking at her so weird, even though she wasn't as naked anymore. Paranoid, she reached up to check her hair. "So... did I like, blip out or something for a minute there? I think I remember blipping. And, um... I think I kinda lost my outfit." She glanced around her, not seeing it anywhere among the rubble on the floor.  
  
Fred came in close, circling her curiously. "Well... you blipped, I guess. But it was for more like a day. Ever since you defeated the big apocalypsy demon, at least. We all thought you were dead. Like, for real dead. Not just the usual vampire dead. But now you're not even that kind of dead, which is really confusing-"  
  
"Shanshu!" Lorne yelled, interrupting Fred's babble.  
  
"Oh, gesundheidt," Harmony supplied helpfully.   
  
Angel suddenly looked sick. Lorne must have gotten some spit on him when he sneezed or something. Gross.  
  
"What?" Angel shook his head. "No. No way."  
  
"Well, what else could it be, Angelcakes? It's the shanshu prophecy! Our little Harmonica here stopped the apocalypse for us, all by her precious little self. And now she's human!" Lorne paused to flash a warm green smile at her. "Good job sweetie. I believe some kudos are in order!"  
  
She returned his smile, happily accepting the compliment even though she had no idea what he was talking about.  
  
Spike ran his hand through his hair, shifting his bewildered gaze from Harmony to Lorne to Angel and back to Harmony again. He seemed to be stuck somewhere between a gasp of disbelief and a fit of hysterical laughter. "Harm?" he spluttered. "Harmony? Really? ...You're kidding!"  
  
Angel was still shaking his head. "No. No, no, no. No way. It's not possible."  
  
Lorne tried to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder but he shook it off.  
  
"What?" Harmony asked, totally lost. "What's going on? I didn't do something wrong, did I?" Whatever it was, it must have been bad. Angel looked really upset.   
  
"Harmony..." Fred said, poking curiously at her arm with a finger. "You're not gonna believe this, but... you're human."  
  
Harmony looked at herself. Huh. She checked her pulse. Fred gently moved her fingers for her to where her pulse actually was. Huh. What do you know, there it was!   
  
"Wow!" she exclaimed. "Hey, that's neat. So I'm like, totally human now? No more vampification?"  
  
"It looks that way." Fred nodded. "I'll have to run some tests. Maybe when Wesley gets out of the hospital-"  
  
"But-" Angel started to protest and stopped. All eyes turned to him expectantly. After a minute or two, he continued. "But it can't be. Harmony didn't have a soul. The prophecy said, "the vampire with a soul." So... not Harmony. It couldn't be her."  
  
All eyes turned back to Harmony.   
  
"Oh," she shrugged, "A soul? I've had one of those."  
  
Jaws dropped.  
  
"What?" Fred gasped.  
  
"How?" Lorne exclaimed.  
  
"Glrgk!" Angel choked.   
  
"Bloody hell," Spike sighed. "They just giving the things out in cereal boxes now or what?"  
  
Harmony shrank back. "Um... it wasn't... I didn't think it was that big of a deal. _Jeez."_  
  
"How did you get a soul?" Fred asked.  
  
"Yeah, and why didn't Jolly Green here see it?" Spike gestured toward Lorne.  
  
Lorne held up his hands defensively, "I never even bothered to take a peek! I mean... it's Harmony!"  
  
"Glrgk." Angel affirmed.  
  
"Well," Harmony explained. "After that whole pyramid thing didn't quite work out, and after Spikey – I mean, _Jerkface_ – here dumped me again, I kinda did a bunch of reading. Joined some groups. Did some real soul-searching – well... y'know, not _soul-_searching... but... demon-searching at least. Whatever. I kinda hooked up with this priestess lady who told me that I could be a whole lot more empowered and stuff if I had my soul. So she gave it to me."  
  
Spike's eyes bugged out. "Gave? She just _gave_ it to you?"  
  
Angel whimpered.  
  
Harmony shrugged again. "Well, yeah. She just gave it to me."  
  
"You mean you didn't have to do anything for it? No trials or torture or... _anything?"_ Spike asked hopefully.  
  
She shook her head. "Nope. Oh! But I did actually trade her one of my favorite pairs of shoes. They were these little black strappy things with a heel that went kinda-"  
  
"NO! No, no, no." Angel waved his arms frantically. "This is not happening. It's a... a nightmare. That's it. A nightmare. Somebody pinch me!"  
  
Fred looked at him sympathetically. "Sorry, Angel. It's really happening. She's shanshued all right."  
  
Gleefully, Spike reached out and pinched Angel. Hard.  
  
"Ow! Dammit, Spike!" Angel shoved Spike away and looked at Harmony. He looked for a really long time. Like if he stared hard enough he could see her soul or something. Harmony stood still while he looked, keeping the coat tight around her and darting her eyes around the room self-consciously.   
  
"Tell me you at least..." Angel paused, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds before continuing. "Tell me you at least suffered a little. Went through at least a little torment in order to atone for your sins. At least tell me that."  
  
Harmony cocked her head. "Atone for my _what_ now?"  
  
  


END 


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